Antinuclear

Under Abbott’s “Direct Action” climate policy, the tax-payer pays the polluters

The Coalition’s climate change policy: it’s the public, not polluters, who pay   The shortcomings of the Direct Action Plan are striking. If the Coalition is serious about tackling climate change, then it must offer voters a credible alternative to the carbon price  The Guardian,  Lisa Caripis 19 Aug 13 

You don’t have to be a policy expert to realise that if the Coalition is serious about climate change, it will have to take its Direct Action Planback to the drawing board.

Having spent time analysing the parties’ climate change policies for the University of Melbourne’s Election Watch, I’m disappointed that yet another speech by Greg Hunt, the shadow minister for climate action, failed to answer key questions about the Coalition’s climate policy. As it stands, the Direct Action Plan falls short as a policy model for climate action: it’s questionable whether it will enable us to control and reduce our emissions at all, let alone to do so in a way that’s cost effective and fair.

The Coalition has said it accepts the climate science and is committed to Australia’s internationally binding target to cut emissions by 5-25% by 2020. The climate science makes it clear that without good policy intervention, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will continue to rise far above safe levels.

The first move of a Coalition government would be to repeal the laws establishing the current carbon price policy and replace them – by the middle of next year at the earliest – with a policy called Direct Action……..

The Coalition’s policies also jeopardise investment in renewable energy. It has promised to scrap the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the $10bn body set up to stimulate private investment in renewable and clean energy technologies, and to review the Renewable Energy Target (RET) in 2014. According to the chair of the peak body for the clean energy sector, the uncertainty created by the prospect of a second review of the RET in two years is deterring investment in renewable energy. Coupled with abolition of the carbon price, this uncertainty will make it more expensive to meet the RET.

Some have pointed out that at best Direct Action is a short-term model that is not viable in the long run. Yet the shortcomings of the Direct Action Plan as it stands are striking. If the Coalition is serious about tackling climate change, then it must offer voters a credible alternative to the carbon price. The various iterations of Direct Action the Coalition has presented to us so far simply don’t cut it. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/20/coalition-climate-change-direct-action

August 20, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | election 2013